Free Republic

Three accused eco-terrorists went on trial under heavy security in Switzerland's highest criminal court Tuesday for an alleged plot to blow up an IBM nanotech research center near Zurich. The trial in the Federal Criminal Court for an Italian couple and Swiss man living in Italy opened after a one-hour delay because of the extraordinary security taken by Swiss police, who cordoned off the area with metal barriers. The three defendants — 35-year-old Costantino Alfonso Ragusa, his 29-year-old wife Silvia Ragusa Guerini and their 26-year-old Swiss friend Luca "Billy" Cristos Bernasconi — had been detained after being arrested last year...

Uh-oh. Those darn stores and business with their lights so we can find them are polluting the skies at night . . . with light. and we can't have that. The skies must be dark . . . just like in the dawn of time. I mean, if cavemen had dark skies, then we must have them, too. Right? That's the point of view of the Dark Skies movement, a group of uber-environmentalists who like their skies dark . . . and their ability to see the road and find the store late at night hampered. The movement took hold...

OTTAWA -- A coalition of environmental groups and firefighters are calling on the federal government to ban flame retardants they say are toxic and pose a serious health risk. The group of chemicals are called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, and are commonly found in many consumer products, such as the casings of television sets, curtains and carpets. Numerous scientific studies indicate these chemicals are linked to serious health issues, including neurological and reproductive problems, said Lisa Gue, environmental health policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation. "We are calling for all chemicals in this class ... to be banned,"...

An environmental protester hugs a British police officer Saturday near London's Heathrow Airport. Organizers hope to attract as many as 1,500 people today to protest a proposed third runway at the airport and greenhouse gases released by air travel. LONDON — For the hundreds of climate-change activists who have camped out near Heathrow Airport for the past week, there is only one way to reduce the carbon footprint of aircraft: Stop flying so much. "Aviation is a luxury we can live without," said a protester named Merrick. Booming air travel, he said, is multiplying greenhouse gases just as the climate-change...

Canada's tar sands, which have become a major and secure supplier of oil to the United States, have also been singled out as a major target for American and Canadian environmentalists. Issuing press releases against them, however, is one thing. Going without the increasing flood of oil they are pouring into the American market would be quite another. Two American environmental groups have declared war on the tar sands. One is the Freedom from Oil Coalition whose San Francisco-based director is formerly of Alberta, the province where almost all the tar sands are located. He was in Alberta last week...

In August, Bayer Cropscience reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that some of the American long grain rice crop had been commingled with its genetically modified (GM) LL-601 rice. LL-601 is the abbreviation for the gene that confers resistance to the Liberty Link herbicide. LL-601 rice, which has not been approved for human consumption, was field tested between 1998 and 2001 and was dropped by Bayer when other varieties proved more productive and it judged that the time was not ripe for introducing GM rice. No one currently knows how the LL-601 rice got commingled at a...